Lollipop to Surviving Syria's Prisons: the week in rave reviews
BBC iPlayer; full series available
Summed up in a sentence In this chilling documentary, two activist brothers head back to the hellish prisons where they were held for nearly a decade during Assad's regime, then the film-makers go further … and meet their old prison guards.
What our reviewer said 'As it's described here, the depravity Syria sunk into might be far beyond human forgiveness. Hussam, a former prison officer who says he hasn't looked in a mirror for three years because he cannot bear to see himself, recalls a tradition he and his colleagues upheld every Wednesday morning: 'execution parties'. At one such event, one of the prisoners who was hanged by the neck didn't die, so Hussam was ordered to finish the job. This put him close enough to hear the man's last words. 'Before he died he said one thing: 'I'm going to tell God what you did.'' Jack Seale
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BBC iPlayer; full series available
Summed up in a sentence The rollicking BBC drama about the infamous Brink's-Mat robbery returns with the irresistible realisation that the police were only after half the gold bullion – then imagines what happened to the rest of it!
What our reviewer said 'The Gold is still prone to giving its characters lengthy speeches, though that quirk has become as much a part of the series as sweaty detectives shouting 'nick 'im!'. But there is an overwhelming sense that this is Good Quality British Drama.' Rebecca Nicholson
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Now/Sky Documentaries; available now
Summed up in a sentence A staggering documentary about the BA flight that stopped for a refuel in Kuwait … just as Saddam Hussein was invading.
What our reviewer said 'If it were a work of fiction, the story of Flight 149 would probably be deemed too horrifying – or too unbelievable – for television. Indeed, as a documentary interspersed with dramatic reconstructions, at points it is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a crucial piece of work: a one-off film that goes deep into a bizarre and increasingly hideous ordeal to ask how and why it happened.' Hannah J Davies
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Channel 4
Summed up in a sentence Jamie Oliver hated school and wrote himself off because of undiagnosed dyslexia, so this striking documentary follows the chef/activist as he launches his new campaign: the push for mandatory screening for all children.
What our reviewer said 'Oliver has less bounce to him than he did during his school dinners campaign. He looks weary, though still determined. He is doing, on both fronts, still better than the rest of us.'
Further reading Jamie Oliver attacks Essex council for not recognising dyslexia as special need
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Disney+; full series available now
Summed up in a sentence A cracking case-of-the-week crime drama starring Kaitlin Olson as a lovable genius with an IQ of 160 who is working as a cleaner in a police station when she solves a doozy of a case – then gets brought in as a consultant in the homicide department.
What our reviewer said 'It is so much desperately needed, perfectly paced fun that, like Kenneth Tynan before me with Look Back in Anger, I don't believe I could be friends with anyone who doesn't love it.' Lucy Mangan
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Further reading The best TV of 2025 in the UK so far
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Daisy-May Hudson's agonised, head-butting portrait of a woman trying to regain custody of her kids is surprisingly even-handed.
What our reviewer said 'It's an impassioned, humane and urgently performed drama, a vivid look at what it's like to be reduced to screaming anguish by the system – as well as what it's like to work for the system, and to be the brick wall getting screamed at.' Peter Bradshaw
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Further reading 'How much can one person take?': Posy Sterling on her intense portrayal of a mum trapped in custody hell
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Windswept samurai western set in 18th-century Scotland, an almost surreal tale of itinerant martial arts performers and a band of thieves.
What our reviewer said 'The pure strangeness of the movie commands attention and there is a charismatic lead performance by Japanese actor-musician Mitsuki Kimura, or Kôki.' Peter Bradshaw
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In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Amusing, well-played French comedy with Camille Rutherford endearing as a writer who wins a place on a Jane Austen retreat.
What our reviewer said 'It glides along on Rutherford's performance as Agathe – witty, warm, keenly observant, a bit clumsy and Bridget Jones-ish, but never, not even for a moment, cringy.' Cath Clarke
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In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Compassionate Troubles romance from 1984, with Helen Mirren as a Catholic woman who marries across the sectarian divide to John Lynch's Cal.
What our reviewer said 'There can't be many movies about love in which the principals don't so much as kiss until an hour and a quarter into the running time. What leads up to the main event is an observant, bleak, sometimes mordantly funny and compassionate account of everyone's melancholy existence.' Peter Bradshaw
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True Story; out now
Summed up in a sentence Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix is interviewed about his role in the Iraq war, WMD and why his world of diplomacy has disappeared.
What our reviewer said 'The result is insightful and a vivid time capsule for the grim and mendacious era of the 'war on terror', during which Blix was tasked with discovering the truth about Saddam's supposed weapons.' Peter Bradshaw
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Further reading From Bush to Blix: what happened to the key figures in the Iraq war?
Reviewed by Jonathan Jones
Summed up in a sentence A dual biography of bohemian painters and siblings Gwen and Augustus John.
What our reviewer said 'Biography can be a glib genre, but Mackrell approaches her subjects with an almost novelistic sensibility. What is success, what is failure? This book raises big questions about how we can judge or know others.'
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Further reading Fights, flings and fabulous paintings: how sibling rivals Augustus and Gwen John exasperated each other
Reviewed by Huw Green
Summed up in a sentence An accessible guide to the most important psychological theory since Freud: predictive processing.
What our reviewer said 'One of the most enjoyable things popular science can do is surprise us with a new angle on how the world operates. Yon's book does this often as he draws out the implications of the predictive brain.'
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Reviewed by Mythili Rao
Summed up in a sentence What can the animal world tell us about how humans couple up?
What our reviewer said 'The story of sexual evolution is one of experimentation and constant improvisation, and that, he says, goes a long way to explaining why human sexual norms seem to be undergoing a transformation.'
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Reviewed by Keshava Guha
Summed up in a sentence Descendants of a proscribed intercaste marriage are connected across continents and centuries in an ambitious panorama.
What our reviewer said 'Johal is a brilliant observer of romance: of uncertain beginnings and awkward endings.'
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Reviewed by Rachel Seiffert
Summed up in a sentence Secrets and sex in post-second world war Europe.
What our reviewer said 'Van der Wouden can draw characters with nuance; she creates and sustains atmospheres deftly, and ultimately delivers a thrilling story.'
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Further reading 'I was on the way to a funeral when the idea came to me': 2024's Booker-shortlisted authors on the moment inspiration struck
Out now
Summed up in a sentence This Zurich duo were torn between focusing on electronics and starting a band – and ended up with a dizzying combination of the two.
What our reviewer said 'This is a whirlwind of an album … Anchored by drawn-out loops, each track slowly builds tension to dizzying, near-erotic heights … For all their repetition, the instrumentals are moreish and never dull, thanks also to the ominous sirens and metallic clangs scattered throughout.' Safi Bugel
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Out 20 June
Summed up in a sentence The LA sisters reflect at length on a painful and difficult breakup. The results are equally messy, but the highs are high indeed.
What our reviewer said 'I Quit peaks, spectacularly, with Relationships. The rest of the album's 15 tracks range from fiercely good and instantly replayable to somewhat bland and instantly forgettable.' Rachel Aroesti
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Out now
Summed up in a sentence The adventurous composer cultivated slime mould and used its intricate webs as inspiration for this complex post-classical release.
What our reviewer said 'Complicated and dense, Hymnal demands deep listening – no bad thing – but its repetitive, jerking movements and myriad layers often become samey and numbing, with Pramuk's fascinating ideas buried in the murk.' Katie Hawthorne
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Out now
Summed up in a sentence Sviatoslav Richter was one of the most recorded pianists of the 20th century but these live recordings from France and Switzerland in 1965 have never been released until now.
What our reviewer said 'There are recordings of Richter's performances of all four sonatas already in the catalogue, but the immediacy of these versions is startling … each work was approached afresh each time he played it.' Andrew Clements
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OVO Hydro, Glasgow; touring to 21 June
Summed up in a sentence Jarvis Cocker's Britpop legends recently came back for More, their first album since 2001. This accompanying tour features highlights from that alongside the hits.
What our reviewer said 'The setlist caters for fans of most Pulp eras, but This Is Hardcore heads are truly spoiled, with Help the Aged and The Fear both played live for the first time in over a decade.' Claire Biddles
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Further reading My cultural awakening: a Pulp song made me realise I was in love with my best friend
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Daughters Of The Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick: Twins wrenched apart by the Chinese government... with one sold to America
Daughters Of The Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick (Granta £20, 288pp) When Zanhua gave birth to twin girls deep in a bamboo grove, out of earshot of prying officials in a remote village in the Chinese province of Hunan in 2000, she and her husband Zeng Youdong knew they'd be in serious trouble if this latest violation of the one-child policy was discovered. The baby girls, Shuangjie and Fangfang, brought the total of their offspring to four – all of them girls. Zanhua had been praying for a boy to satisfy her parents-in-law, who insisted that a son was necessary to conduct the family's ritual displays of piety. Instead, here were more girls: adorable, but illegal. The couple were still working themselves to the bone in a far-away city to raise money to pay the fines (equivalent of a year's salary) for having their second child. While they were away, officials punched a hole in their roof, as an extra punishment. They decided not to register the twins' births. But they'd need to be careful. Spies from Family Planning (the government department as ruthless as the Stasi) were everywhere. Signs were up in towns and villages: 'If you violate our policy, your family will be destroyed.' Officials snooped round villages listening out for crying newborns. Youdong took Shuangjie with him to work in the city, and Fangfang was sent to lodge with a loving aunt and uncle. Reading Barbara Demick's shocking account of how Fangfang would be brutally abducted by agents of the government, sent to an orphanage and adopted by well-meaning Americans who'd been told she'd been abandoned by her family outside a factory gate, makes one gasp at the cruelty, let alone the economic short-sightedness, of China 's one-child policy, which began in 1979 and officially ended only in 2015. A government slogan went: 'After the first child: insert an IUD. After the second: sterilise. After the third: kill, kill, kill!' Zanhua remembered seeing a pregnant woman being hauled away for a forced abortion, kicking and screaming. No one dared to help her – they'd have been beaten up. A side effect of this situation was that couples across the Western world who wanted to adopt a baby could now hope to find one in China. Many Chinese parents did abandon their second babies, to avoid the fines and punishments. Orphanages were bursting. There was a huge take-up of adoptions, especially in the USA. Chinese adoptees were 'media darlings'. Western families felt virtuous in rescuing the babies, believing they'd been voluntarily abandoned. Thus it was that an evangelical Christian couple from Texas, Marsha and Al, aged 46 and 54, adopted two Chinese girls: first Victoria, and then, in 2002, another girl aged two-and-a-half, whom they named Esther. That little girl was Fangfang. The official documentation from the Shaoyang Orphanage said: 'Found abandoned at the gate of the Qiatou Bamboo Craft Factory… We cannot find her natural parents and other relatives up to now.' Reunited: The moment the sisters meet for the first time That was a blatant lie. What had really happened was that a group of men burst in to her aunt Xiuhua's house, held her down as she struggled, screamed and clung to Fangfang, and took the little girl away. They delivered her to the Civil Affairs Office, who took her on to the orphanage to be put up for adoption. These were not rogue child traffickers. They were a branch of the Chinese government, fixing problems in the global supply chain. Ten per cent of babies put up for adoption were confiscated in that way. The West was greedy for adoptees, and orphanages relied on the $3,000 in cash that adoptive families paid them for each one. Esther's devastated parents were powerless to find her, let alone retrieve her. 'It was your fault for having too many children,' the Family Planning office told them. They had no right even to know where she'd been taken. They had no idea she might have gone overseas. The sleuthing author of this excellent book discovered that those ads put out by Chinese orphanages often lied about the babies' provenance. Among the dozen Chinese parents she interviewed were Zanhua and Youdong, who, seven years later, had no idea of Fangfang's whereabouts. In 2009, Demick's piece for the Los Angeles Times 'Stolen Chinese babies supply adoption demand' shocked the West. Lots of her American friends had adopted Chinese babies. The piece mentioned twins who'd been separated. Marsha received an email from a woman in the adoptees group on Yahoo, who'd read the piece. 'Could Esther be the missing twin?' Marsha had a sinking feeling of certainty that she was, as the dates the twin went missing matched up with Esther's adoption. Esther, happily living in Texas as an American nine-year-old girl, happened to see a text on her mother's phone: 'It's terrible for twins to be separated.' She'd noticed her mother had been agitated recently, and thought it weird when her mother had pushed her hair aside and taken a snap of the small bump on her left ear (the other twin had a similar bump). Eventually Marsha quietly mentioned to Victoria and Esther that a scandal had erupted in China over confiscated babies, and that one of the babies had a twin sister in China who was looking for her. 'Mum, am I that twin?' Esther asked. Appalled that they'd been unwitting participants in a corrupt lie, Marsha and Al became terrified that Esther would be kidnapped and sent back to China. They put a fence round the house, and lived in a state of 'pervasive, unspoken unease'. It wasn't until Esther was 17 that she suggested to her mother that they contact her possible lost twin sister. Thus it was that Demick went to the city of Changsha to meet Shuangjie, and the twins met, first by video call, and then, a few months later, face to face in the village where Fangfang had been born. A DNA check confirmed that it was 99.999 per cent certain that the girls were identical twins. Demick beautifully describes the initial awkwardness of the two families on meeting each other. Zanhua had made an elaborate lunch, in their freezing, unheated village house. Everyone sat around with their coats on. The first thing Zanhua said to her long-lost daughter was 'Eat, eat, before it gets cold.' No one made conversation. But gradually, over the ten-day stay, they thawed out. Shuangjie braided Esther's hair, and the twins talked about the clothes and music they loved. When they left, Zanhua and Marsha embraced, 'celebrating their collaborative motherhood'. But the fact that the girls didn't even speak the same language brought home the cultural separation that had been inflicted on them. Demick observes (fascinatingly) that, economically speaking, the Chinese family were becoming better off than the Texas family. While American families were struggling with mortgages and health-insurance premiums, earnings per capita for the Chinese had gone up tenfold over the last 18 years. The Zeng family owned nearly two acres of farmland, and were building a brick house the size of a small hotel. 'Esther has been a bright star in my life,' Marsha said to Zanhua. 'But I would never have adopted her if I'd known she'd been stolen from you.'
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Israel v Iran LIVE: Iran fires barrage of missiles at Israel as IDF strikes oil depot and says ‘Tehran is burning'
IRAN has reportedly launched over 100 missiles at Israel in the latest round of intense strikes in the Middle East. The Israeli military quickly responded to the deadly barrage by striking Iranian oil depots - as officials said Tehran was left up in flames. 6 6 6 6 Iran struck first in the second night of strikes with explosions reported across residential regions in the country. Haifa and Tel Aviv were said to be the main targets with air raid sirens also been sounded in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Around 100 missiles are said to have been launched in Iran's follow-up wave of their operation "True Promise 3", according to state TV. Several injures have been reported with a woman in her 20s killed in Western Galilee. The Israeli military responded by carrying out air strikes in Tehran while they worked to intercept the Iranian missiles. Israeli planes attacked four targets in Tehran with the Ministry of Defense, the nuclear headquarters, nuclear laboratories, and oil facilities all hit. Footage online shows the Shahran oil depot up in flames after a pinpoint strike. It comes as Tehran vowed to strike US, UK and French military bases in the region if they step in to try and defend Israel. Israel's allies across the world have in the past helped Tel Aviv shoot down missiles fired from Iran during previous clashes between the two enemy powers. But as the situation escalates towards full-scale war - Iranian state media reported they consider US, UK and French forces the firing line. It warned Tehran would target military bases and ships located in the region if the three countries provided support to Israeli. It came as Israel's defence minister vowed "Tehran will burn" after Iran launched hundreds of missiles toward them. At least three people were killed and dozens more wounded in the first night of strikes on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday - while Israel continued to pound targets in Iran. Both sides sit on the brink of war after Israel accused Iran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb - launching a massive wave of pre-emptive strikes on Friday. Israel killed top military leaders, nuclear scientists and blasted secretive sites believed to be being used by Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Defence minister Israel Katz said Iran"crossed red lines after it dared to attack the civilian population" and will now "pay a heavy price for it". He added: "If Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn." Reports emerged that Israel's version of the Pentagon - the HaKirya - had been hit, though these were not confirmed. Tehran branded the retaliatory strikes as a "punishment" attack on Israel. Both sides have warned more is yet to come, with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowing to inflict "heavy blows". He said his armed forces will bring the "vile regime [Israel] to ruin". Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iran that "more is on the way" and warned "the regime does not know what will hit them". 6 6 Stay up to date with the latest on Israel vs Iran with The Sun's live blog below... just now By Georgie English 1 dead after Iranian attacks A woman in her 20s has been killed following Iran's strikes, Israel's emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) has said. The woman was pulled from the rubble of a two-storey house in Western Galilee. Thirteen others were injured with seven people being taken to hospital, MDA added. 2 minutes ago By Georgie English Benjamin Netanyahu chairs meeting with security cabinet following Iran's strikes By Georgie English Iran will not go back to negotiating table - president warns Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ignored calls from France's Emmanuel Macron to return to the negotiating table amid a looming war with Israel. Pezeshkian says Iran will never sit at the negotiating table while Israel continues to attack. Today, 20:20 By Georgie English RAF jets to be sent to the Middle East RAF fighter jets to be scrambled to Middle East as Israel-Iran conflict spirals and Tehran threatens to strike UK bases Today, 19:55 By Georgie English 'Violent and destructive' Iranian attacks to come Iranian State TV has announced a harrowing prediction warning of "violent and destructive attacks" on Israel within hours. The loved ones of Israeli government ministers have reportedly been evacuated to secret locations amid the threats, say Israeli Channel 13. Today, 19:44 By Georgie English 31 killed in Iranian province in strikes - governor The governor of Iran's north-western East Azerbaijan province has said 31 people have died in the region amid the fighting with Israel. This number includes 30 military personnel and one member of the Iranian Red Crescent. Bahram Sarmast added 55 people have been injured so far. Iran is yet to release an official number of casualties. Today, 19:05 By Georgie English Decimated remains of Ramat Gan, Israel after an Iranian strike
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Watch: Iran launches fresh missile barrage towards Jerusalem after vowing ‘destructive' attacks
This is the moment projectiles from an Iranian missile attack flash in the night sky over Israel 's capital Jerusalem on Saturday (14 June). Iran launched a fresh missile barrage towards Jerusalem after it vowed "heavy and destructive" attacks, as the Israeli military continues to strike several targets across Iran. Iranian state TV said more than 100 missiles were launched in the second wave of their operation "True Promise 3". Israeli Police said it received reports of a fallen explosive device in a community in the Northern District. Initial reports indicated that there were several casualties and damage at the scene.
